Like Suicide
by Tangledupandsideways
Summary: Cal is interested in Gill like suicide. Maybe it's because she looks so sad. (Mostly pre-series with mentions of 1x06 Do No Harm. Slightly AU. Just one naughty word)


A/N: I've messed with the timeline in this piece. Let's say Gillian and Alec had Sophie more than just one year pre-series, around the time Gillian and Cal first meet (which I've made before he was her client) Also wanted to say the last chapter of Dealing With it should be posted soon. I've been struggling to get it right.

P. S. Bonus points to whoever knows where the green plastic elephant comes from

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VII.

What catches him first is the look in her eyes. There is something swimming in them, some combination of emotions that he can't quite read. Maybe it's because they make no logical sense being paired together or maybe somehow she knows how to stump him. Maybe she is trying to school her feautures so no one would know what she is feeling.

She laughs at something someone's said and the sound rings out pleasant, musical, but her expression doesn't match, not quite. But, the variation from true happiness is so slight, he doesn't know what she's feeling.

She is charming the pants off of everyone around her with this gorgeous smile that crinkles around her sapphire eyes, but in the wrong way. She's got this master lie going and everyone believes her. Nobody questions her happiness. Nobody knows what she's hiding underneath.

His desire to know is so strong, he moves from his prime location, from the place he can see everyone in the room, so he can see _her._

He can't help the lopsided grin that takes over his face as he makes his way over to that woman, her arm looped through that of a man who looked as if he was trying to be impressive. He took a moment to appreciate her svelte beauty, silky brown hair brushing freckled shoulders and curves underneath her black dress.

"Hi. Cal Lightman," he says, reaching a hand out for her to shake.

Her hand is so warm in his, he almost wishes she wouldn't let go. But she does, of course she does.

She introduces herself as Gillian Foster and the man on her arm as her husband, Alec.

"You've got a stunning smile, darling. What do you do?"

She nods her appreciation before speaking.

"I'm a psychologist," she says.

And he wants so badly to laugh. If anyone should understand denial, it should be a psychologist. But problems are always harder to fix within yourself.

"I've a background there, too," Cal says. "Did a study, though, and developed a science. Microexpressions, body language, and all that."

"To know what people are feeling? To help them?"

Something almost desperate flits over her face. And all of a sudden, he _knows._

It's sadness there underneath the smiles, the laughter. It's bloody _agony._ And he's seen it before. He watches it over and over and over on an old video of his mother who said she just wanted to go home to her husband and son, but took her life instead. She was the reason for his science in the first place.

"Something like that," he says.

He doesn't know what happened to Gillian Foster, what she lost, what edged her so close to the freefall. What he knows is that he'll do what it takes to pull her back to the relative safety of this life. He'll do whatever it takes to pull the pain from her expression and her heart.

VI.

They become friends so naturally, Cal and Gillian. Conversation is easy and silences are comfortable. He's supposed to be her client, but friendship blooms so fast that she just _wants_ to help him in whichever way she can, regardless of reward. And as soon as she can, she gets him off her client list.

They lunch together as often as once a week and the laughter flows freely, more every time.

As the months go by, her agony softens into melancholy, then the quietest sadness he'd ever seen. He's filled with relief. Now he knows (well, fucking _hopes)_ that she will not leave those that love her, not like his mother did. But, he still doesn't know the cause. He doesn't know the root of an issue so obviously close to her, a painful secret held somewhere within herself, so he doesn't know that the pain won't return. He doesn't know that she won't go back to that place without hope, where darkness envelops everything.

He'd been there before, too. He'd hated the direction he was going, the shambles of a life his mother had torn through in her rush to escape, the destruction he'd caused to combat the hurt. He was without hope, too. He doesn't feel it even when he was falling in love with Zoe, marrying her. He feels it first when he sees his little girl just born, pink and new and completely innocent. They name her Emily Louise, after his mother. And he has never loved anyone more. He doesn't want to die anymore when he realises this little life is his responsibility and he loves her more than he could ever love himself.

V.

Gillian meets Emily just after Cal asks her to be his partner. And she's enamoured. The five-almost-six year old with the chestnut ringlets and wide eyes just seeps sweetness from her every pore. She calls the older woman Mrs. Gillian, even though she was told just Gill was fine.

Gillian sits down with Emily and draws pictures in colourful crayon while Cal takes a phone call. She has to try so hard to keep the sadness out of her eyes when he returns, focusing on how happy Emily's free spirit makes her. Somehow, she's sure he sees it anyway.

IV.

In the beginning stages of the Lightman Group, they meet in their kitchens. Gillian's on mondays and tuesdays and Cal's wednesdays and thursdays.

Sunday night, Gillian picks up the little pink blanket and the stuffed rabbit from the living room, putting them in the room she doesn't like to go in anymore. But, if she keeps the lights off, it doesn't hurt so much.

She takes the picture off of the fridge, once held up by a green elephant magnet. Looking at it puts a bitter taste in her mouth and tears behind her eyes. But when she returns to bed where Alec is sleeping, she slips the photo under her pillow. And it's as much comfort as it is pain.

When Cal comes over the next day, he doesn't ask why she looks with such sorrow at a green magnet and a blank space on her fridge.

III.

It's their eighth case, she's counted. And it hits so close to home. He notices that her eyes become dull, gorgeous blue fading into grey. And it takes so much out of her to stay on task and just do her job.

Everyone's lying and she's not sure she wants to hear the truth. It'll just push the dagger deeper into her heart, make it hurt so much more.

The mother-not-mother says the allegedly stolen baby is her child and she's telling the truth. But when asked if she's the only mother, her head shakes no just the slightest bit before she answers in the affirmative. And like that, case closed. A mother has another baby ripped from her arms.

II.

She tells him that night, celebratory glasses of scotch downed and Emily sleeping soundly in the Lightman's living room. She looks at him unguardedly and speaks with candour, allowing herself to feel it again, just this once.

"I had a baby girl once," she says, her grief weighing down her words.

"We adopted her from Delaware from this teenage girl, looked like a baby herself. She gave us Sophie and I let myself love her, let myself believe she was _my_ daughter. Then, her biological mother wanted her back."

He puts his arm around her and it's like the dam breaks. All the pain she'd hidden between smiles and laughs comes pouring out of her in an ocean of tumult. Her sobs take over her entire frame and she keeps repeating a phrase as if it's a mantra or a prayer that would somehow save her.

 _"It wasn't fair. It wasn't me."_

 _"It wasn't fair. It wasn't me."_

I.

They don't bring it up again for ages. Not until another case strikes her right where it hurts, even when it's been almost ten years.

He walks on eggshells around her and she wishes he wouldn't because it just puts more thoughts of Sophie in her head, memories of Alec tiptoeing around her for months so as not to encounter her despair, her rage.

She tells the woman who had her child, her Sammy, stolen from her about Sophie. She remembers the way she'd taken care of her; warming bottles and changing diapers and knowing how best to make the two-month-old stop crying. She tells her that she was only a mother 57 days, that she's not getting her baby back. And just as she hopes, her raw honesty pushes this adoptive mother to go get her baby, her Samantha. But it isn't true. It didn't matter where Sophie was, Gillian would always be her mother.

Gillian doesn't get to be a mother and she tries so hard not to be jealous of the successful adoption in front of her, of Cal and Emily (who finally calls her just Gill).

Cal looks at her and she _knows._ She knows it's okay to fall apart, he'll piece her back together. It's okay to be angry and jealous and sad, he'll feel it with her.

"It wasn't fair," she says, wiping away her tears and avoiding his eyes.

"It wasn't, love. And it wasn't you."

"Yeah," she says. "I know that now."


End file.
